Tis a little hot for WOYWW

It's a tad hot here at the moment,

well not so much hot but really humid.

You know the kind where your hair is all frizzy

and you drip with sweat, even though it's only 29 deg.

This is the weather we usually get at the end

of summer, not in spring and to make it worse

there are no storms insight, so no relief.

Having said that, we were inundated with ants

this morning.  Those pesky little things were all over the floor.

I sprayed the entire place with surface spray

just a few weeks ago but the ants have ignored that

fact.  Think I'll leave the can on the floor,

just so they can read it and see that it kills ants.

A fact that seems to have slipped their minds as they 

climb into poor Charlie parrots cage and try to 

take him away.  

Around here, ants in the house means rain is on the way,

I just hope it gets here soon, the grass is dead and the 

flowers don't look too happy.

 

To my desk this week.

I've been playing with my water colours.

I have used a cook book to find interesting things to paint.

In fact, that is the only use I have for cookbooks.

I can't get my head around cooking, you spend hours

creating something and then it's eaten in five minutes,

(or put in the bin, which is where most

 of my attempts end up) such a waste of time. 

 If I can't make it in half an hour

it don't get made.  However, painting from a cookbook

is wonderful fun and it lasts longer too.

This isn't finished but it's getting there.

 

The picture to the front right is part of my house from the

back garden.  We had to paint a building for Sketchbook Skool

and it was too hot to go out so I did our house.

  The notebook on the top left contains the 

rantings of a madwoman, yes me.

I was watching TV last night and hubby was 

channel surfing as usual, you never get to see

and entire program in this house, and he came

across an ocean program that had these

gorgeous jellyfish.  I grabbed my book, which always sits on

the coffee table and started to sketch from the tv.

Little cogs were actually moving in my pea brain.

I can see a fabulous painting coming from these 

delicate little guys.  I'm going to play around  with

composition and then see if I can create those

delicate little frills with goop, then make the bodies

translucent, ink it and there's another painting.

My only problem is, delicate is really not me,

rush in and go nuts, that's more me.  

Fingers crossed I can be more ladylike

(cough, cough).

 

A note to finish on,

My wall of inspiration has grown

 

 My wonderful friend Tracey Fletcher King is selling

some of her paintings and cards and I got in quick.

 Aren't they gorgeous.

If you want to see what she is selling you can find it here

on her Facebook page Tracey Fletcher King Art and Illustrations,

there may even be a few left.

That's me for WOYWW this week,

why not go on over to

Julia's Stamping Ground 

and see what's on the other desks 

around the world today.

P.S.  The little guinea pig is doing really well,

he had his stitches out yesterday and

is healing nicely.

 

 

 

Scribbly week for WOYWW

My desk is a bit different 

this week for WOYWW.

No paint or canvasses

just pen and paper

and a much needed coffee.

I've been doodling, lots.

There are heaps of fine liner pens, got them cheap

as a set with the pencil case, and then I bought the 

pacer pencils and 6 colour pens really cheap at

my grocery store today.  

The blue sketch and the one in the front,

it's a picture of the hanger thingys that I put

on the back of my canvasses

 (in case you were wondering),

are homework from sketchbook skool.

The two pages to the left have pics of 

our two guinea pigs.

The little face of Chico is below the slippers,

 he had to have surgery last wednesday

and below that is Ziggy, who was really

missing his buddy while he was at the vets.

It's been a scary week but he is well and truly

on the mend now.  I found doing sketches

of the boys made me feel better as

it's been a very stressful week.

Here he is after surgery,

his new nickname is Nudie Boy

as they shaved him so much.

I did bring my seagull picture home

and intended to finish the birds

but never got into the room

as I was keeping an eye on 

little Chico.

It's not as blue as this pic, I have to turn it away from the light as the ink reflects so much.

 Here you can get an idea

of just how much work has gone

into this canvas.

 There are many layers of gloop and squiggles

going over the top of each other.

Once the eyes are painted in and the edge of 

the canvas has been painted

a nice bright orange,

I think it will look pretty good.

I did have a tussle with some water colours

last week

and if you're interested, that post is

here.

That's all for this week,

I've shown you mine, so why not

hop on over to 

Julia's Stamping Ground

and see what's on the other desks 

this Work Desk Wednesday.

How NOT to water colour

This weeks sketchbook skool

was for the two things that 

I like least.

Landscapes (eww) and proper water colour

(not the colouring in that I call water colour).

To make it worse, I had to do it

plein air, or outside as I would say.

I decided to tackle the landscape bit first.

I was sitting comfortably on the 

outside couch on my patio

and decided to draw the trees in my garden

and the trees over the back fence.

Looking, looking, there's a lot to take in

and I don't know where to start.

I pick up my pen and draw a tree trunk

 add a few bits and wow this landscaping stuff 

is not my cup of tea.

I splodge on a bit of paint using my water brush,

this is a quick way to do leaves. 

Then it started. 

 The teacher had said to spray the paints 

and get them wet.  I did that before I started drawing

and then decided to mix some colours

 so they would be ready. 

I had this tray on my lap and stuck the brush into the paint,

lifted it to the little dish and then realised the pan was stuck

to the brush, it had gone sticky as it was drying.

I panicked and flicked the brush,

resulting in one pan flying away and over 

into the dirt on the lawn.

I jumped up and of course the whole tray of paints

then fell onto the patio and was coated in dust.

I grabbed the wayward pan and tried to brush it off

but it was stuck hard.  

A word of warning, if you do this don't

 hold the pan and dump it into a bowl of water,

 cos when you lift it out paint runs down

 your arm and onto your trouser leg.

After a few choice words, I was ready to start again.

I got the spray bottle and gave it a good hard spray.

Not a good idea as it splashed up everywhere,

seems once it's been wet it gets really sploshy.

Mess cleaned up, I start again.

This time I get it sort of alright

and I end up with,

well, a mess really.

The rest of my homework was to 

draw birds in the garden.

 

Now we're talking, I love birds and we have tons of them.

Have you ever tried to get a bird to sit still

while you draw it?

Apart from Charlie, my very vain parrot,

no other birds will sit still for anything.

I gave up after fifty tries and got out the camera.

It was easy once I was inside my art room.

I pencilled up the birds, did them in pen

and then 'water' coloured them in.

Now I know I should have persevered

and done quick little sketches

but after the paint pan incident

I'd had enough.

'Plein air' my foot, it should be called

'plein painful'!

Lots of little bits for WOYWW

I'm not sure how you would

describe this last week.

I kinda did quite a bit but

at the same time got nowhere fast.

My desk is over at the back today.

The pink blobs are bags of texture paste that

I'm piping and knifing onto a bird canvas.

The dirty water, that I thought I'd cleaned up,

is from Sketchbook Skool and check out that 

fabulous sprayer.  That's for my next inking.

No more pumping a little handle,

this bad boy just sprays on command.

My Sketchbook Skool homework was to get 

three things and draw them using a continuous

line and then water colour it.

The drawing went sort of okay but I did

have a blonde moment after the drawing.

That is a whole other story and if you want to see

it's here in my last post.

My water colouring skills are not great

but at least I tried.

I wish I could say using water colour paper would have saved it but I don't think anything could save this.

I did get another canvas drawn up and

undercoated and I'm really happy with that.

See, who needs water colour when you can play

with big blobby things. 

This is what I'm doing with the pink and green gloop

in the bags.

I've just started putting in the very back leaves

and I'll build up over these with the closer leaves.

I did a little bit of adjusting

 to my seagulls in class.

Sorry about the angle, I just can't get 

the hang of my phone camera.

Plus I'm too short to get over the top of it.

It's pretty much finished now.

I just have to paint in the birds eyes

and then I can finally photograph it upright.

So you see, I sorta did a lot

but really didn't get far with anything.

Well that's my rather boring desk 

for this week.

So why not hop on over to 

Julia's Stamping Ground

and see what is on the other desks

around the world.

Sorry it wasn't very funny today,

I'm still in shock at the cost

of Little Miss's braces.

I have a savings account called

"my new kitchen fund"

and in two weeks time Little Miss

will be walking around with my 

new kitchen in her mouth (sigh).

 

 

Yet another blonde moment.

My close friends know that I'm a blonde

in every sense of the word.

I could have black hair and I'd still be 'blonde'.

I'm doing the Seeing lessons

at Sketchbook Skool and this week I had to 

put three items together and draw the basic shapes

using one continuous line,

with a water soluble pen. Then 

colour it with water colours.

Simple you'd think.

Do you think I could find a water soluble

pen in this entire house.

All of little miss's felt pens have dried up 

and everything I own is permanent ink.

My first idea was to use my Inktense

water colour pencils.

You get used to wonky pics as I sure I hold my head sideways.

 This looked okay until I added water

and the colour went every where.

So I decided to just colour it in

but I couldn't use that for my homework.

I got bored with this and didn't refine it. So good enough will do.

Next I decided to use a pitt pen to at least 

start some practise sketches.

Still wonky but getting better.

Then I drew up the sketch

of what will be the finished

continuous line drawing,

when I get a water soluble pen.

 Not too shabby.

Remember this has to be done 

with one continuous line,

no lifting of pens.

That is really hard when you have 

the attention span of a gnat.

I'm happy with the composition

now all I have to do is get a soluble pen

and use the same set up of things

to draw it up again.

Then came my blonde moment.

I was cutting up the veggies for dinner

and yes you guessed it,

stupid here cut up that gorgeously

angled piece of pumpkin.

It is three quarters of the way through

my families digestive tract and

I really don't want to draw it now.

Just lucky I have the sketches

to use for the finished product.

I'll just wing the colours and shading

for the water colour part.

The moral of this story

is that

veggies are bad for art

and chocolate rules!

Hey, you eat chocolate before you have

 a chance to sketch it so you never ruin

 a painting that way.